Well, the competition is over, thank heavens. Here are some observations, thoughts, results, whatnot:
1. We had fun. FUN. It was a beautiful day in so many ways.
2. I wasn't perfect, but the parts I flubbed were not audible and went unseen by the drum judge, who had his head down most of the time, listening.
3. My partner tenor, all of 14 years old, dropped her drum on the pavement 10 minutes prior to our scheduled performance. The head cracked. This is not easy to do, and not easy to fix quickly. Or at all if you don't have a spare head. We did have a spare drum thanks to another band member who showed up even though she wasn't competing. It was put onto the harness and tuned literally on the approach to the competition circle. My partner dried her tears, composed herself, and played an awesome set. Kudos, kiddo.
4. Of all the judges' feedback, the tenors received the least. Meaning we did the least noticeably "wrong" stuff. Considering that we are the two newest members of the band who compete, I'm pleased with that.
5. The band finished 13th of 13 in our grade.
6. Where we finished is not so important; we learned a lot, made new friends, and got that frightening first event out of the way.
Slideshow from my camera (not all my shots as I ended up in some of them) is here. I'm waiting for a link to the video that should be posted on youtube soon.
Summary: I'm glad it's over and I'm glad we have another one planned in October.
PS - A week before the competition, some of us were comparing the anxiety dreams we'd been having. I dreamed the band leaders hired some professional tenors to cover up my potential errors. My mentor (in green baseball cap) dreamed that an hour before our performance, the band leaders asked her to play clarinet instead of bass drum, and she was panicked at having to learn the instrument in an hour flat. So . . . day of performance comes and what goes strolling by us exactly one hour before our performance? A lady with a clarinet. Clarinet? At a feis? Maybe this is normal but it was just so freaky we had to stop her and ask for her picture. See the slideshow.
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